Neck (music) - Attachment

Attachment

The method of connecting the neck to the body of the instrument varies according by instrument. This ranges from necks that are simply screwed onto the body of the instrument (such as in electric guitars like the Fender Stratocaster) to various types of glued joints.

There are basically four ways of attaching the neck to the body using glued joints:

• With a dovetail joint, where the dovetail is cut into the end of the neck assembly and fits into a mating mortise in the instrument's endblock. This is typically used on acoustic and hollow-body electric guitars.

• With a simpler mortise and tenon joint, which is similar to a dovetail joint, except that the tenon is straight instead of tapered. Sometimes these joints are reinforced with screws, nails or pins. Since this joint is inherently weaker than a dovetail joint, it is usually only found on violins and similar instruments with less string tension.

• With a neck that ends in a "foot" that is glued to the instrument body proper. This method is mostly used in building classical and flamenco guitars. The "foot" is on the bottom of the neck, and affords a large gluing surface to the back of the instrument.

• By making the neck part of the body. This method is used on some solid-body electric guitars, where the piece of wood that is the neck runs the entire length of the instrument and is laminated to the rest of the body. This makes an extremely strong joint.

The two factors in deciding what type of neck joint to use are:

1. Strength: will the joint hold under the instrument's string tension without pulling out?
2. Repairability: can the joint be easily repaired if needed? While the latter two methods (using a "foot" and laminating the neck into the instrument) create very strong joints, they are not very repairable, and require tearing the instrument apart if repairs are needed.